Kuno yawned softly as she awoke, blinking several times and nuzzling faintly into Warden’s wings, giving a soft purr at the sensation of the soft feathers against her cheeks. As she wrapped her hooves around the pegasus, he stirred fitfully, yawning and stretching slowly.
A soft purr left the changeling, and she leaned in to nibble sleepily at the edges of his wings, careful with his crippled one. “Moooorning,” she chirped, rubbing her hooves against his back slowly.
Warden gave an incoherent sound and leaned back against the nibble and rubs of her hoof with a happy groan. “Morning.”
“So, whatcha got planned for today?” Kuno queried, pushing her nose between his wings to nuzzle gently at his spine.
Warden hummed thoughtfully, stretching, before saying with a weary sigh, “I should really plant these Aurora seedlings and set up the tracks...”
“Tracks?” Kuno asked, confused, wrapping her hooves around him.
Warden nodded, rolling over carefully to face Kuno and kissing her nose. “Tracks. Basically, I get a brush, some herbs, and I ‘paint’ a track up the side of the ravine. The Aurora should grow along the lines, really.”
Kuno pondered on that, before nodding. “You’ll need someone to fly up there, won’t you?”
Warden blinked once, before he gave a slow nod, looking suddenly sad. “Yeah... I guess I will.”
“Don’t worry,” Kuno said with a smile, kissing his nose. “I’m here for you, Warden. Just tell me what you need.”
Warden hummed thoughtfully at that, and then gave a sly smile. “Now if that were the case, we wouldn’t ever leave the bed.”
Kuno giggled, kissing his nose, chin, and then at the hollow of his throat. “I am a bad influence on you.”
“‘Bad’ is subjective,” Warden stated, wrapping his hooves around the changeling.
Warden hummed softly to himself as he cooked sausages in the frying pan. They were a special blend of vegetables and what stock wrapped in an edible skin of rolled and flattened caramel sugar. It was a high-energy breakfast that would last him the entire day, and he was planning on it being a big day.
There was already a plate beside him with several sausages on it, with a red sauce smattered along their length.
A sleepy Kuno emerged from the room, yawning and rubbing at one of her frills with a hoof, one eye closed, the other sleepily open as she scratched at an itch.
“Smells nice,” Kuno stated, creeping closer and then pushing herself up so that her front hooves were on the counter, peering at the sausages.
“They do,” Warden said with a smile. He tilted his head towards the plate. “Those’re mine. Yours are cooking.”
Kuno hummed faintly, and then gave a mischievous grin, “This one is mine!” she declared, snatching up a sausage in her hoof.
“That’s mine!” Warden huffed.
“Mine now!” Kuno cooed, pulling it up towards her mouth.
“I wouldn’t,” Warden stated, raising a single brow at her, “It’s -”
“-Mine!” Kuno finished for him, cutting across him with a grin, holding it up and giving a naughty grin as she delicately swirled her tongue along the underside of it.
Warden stared at the changeling for a long moment.
Grinning, Kuno swirled her tongue along it even further, drawing the first few inches into her muzzle and deliberately slowly coiling her tongue around it to visibly clean the red sauce from it.
Warden turned abruptly. “I’ll get the milk,” he stated calmly.
Kuno blinked at him, pulling off the sausage with a pop! and huffing faintly. “What? I’m trying to be a naughty, teasy changeling, the least you cou-”
Kuno trailed off, her muzzle suddenly parting wide as she exhaled hard, her eyes widening. She paused for several long moments before beginning to flail her forehooves, bouncing in place and looking about wildly.
Warden calmly offered his fiancee a glass of milk with an ‘I told you so’ expression.
Kuno snatched up the glass of milk, shoving it against her lips and then swallowing hard over and over again, whimpering in the back of her throat. Once it was drained, she splayed her hooves and then panted hard, tongue hanging out, bouncing in place in dismay.
“Hot?” Warden asked with a soft laugh.
“Y-you monster!” Kuno hissed, trying to scrape her tongue off with a hoof, huffing breaths hard and fast through her mouth.
Warden laughed, picking up the sausage from where she had dropped it on the counter, and then making short work of it with neat bites. He swallowed and then gave a quiver, humming happily. “Spicy.”
“How can you eat that?!” Kuno demanded to know, dragging herself over to the fridge to get another glass of milk. “It’s basically toxic waste!”
“You think a pony that grows vines for a living wouldn’t have wild jalapeno?” Warden asked with a wry smile. “Found a jar of jalapeno pepper powder I’d forgotten about. It’s aged well.”
Kuno huffed, rubbing her hoof over her tongue still, before drowning her tongue in several mouthfuls of milk.
Warden gave a helpless smile. “Told ya not to eat my food.”
“I didn’t know you’d dipped it in the sun!” Kuno whined.
Warden grinned at that. “Just... don’t rub your eyes. Or any other sensitive areas before you wash your hooves. Preferably a few times.”
Kuno pursed her lips, and then gave a sly grin. “Ohhhh... if you don’t become my personal slave while I’m pregnant, I’m replacing our bedside vaseline with that stuff.”
A slowly raising eyebrow was her response. “I think I’d notice.”
“Not if I zapped you a little,” Kuno said, her tone sweet as honey.
Warden shook his head slowly, leaning in to kiss her nose. “You wouldn’t risk damaging your most prized possession like that.”
Kuno whined faintly. “It’s not fair! I can’t even scare you any more because you know I won’t go through with it!”
“Oh you scare me deeply,” Warden said, kissing her nose again and nuzzling against her slowly, crooning, “Big bad changeling.”
Kuno huffed softly. “One day, you’re gonna come home to a changeling queen pinning you down and tying you up, and you won’t have anypony to blame but yourself!”
Warden grinned, kissing her cheek and neck gently. “Oh I dare you, Kuno. Tie me up and try to tease me. I bet I’d last longer than you would.”
Another faint whine left the changeling. “Don’t tempt me!”
“I already am,” Warden said with a sly grin, before turning away and returning to flipping the sausages. “Now, if you’re done making scary, hollow threats, we have some breakfast to eat so we can go plant some aurora.”
Kuno huffed softly, glowering, bottom lip poking out. “But I get to fellate one of the sausages and you have to at least pretend to be interested!”
Warden laughed, leaning sideways and kissing her cheek. “You’re a goof.”
“A sexy, seductive, alluring goof!” Kuno corrected with a snort.
“Sexy, seductive, alluring goof,” Warden agreed, smiling.
Kuno transformed into a pegasus for the trip to the ravine, holding the wooden case, with the two Aurora seedlings safely inside, between her wing, arguing that Warden might drop it.
Warden was limping along behind her, carrying a myriad of utensils. He had them stuffed into two buckets, carrying one between his wings and the other around his neck. He made an awkward sight, carrying the buckets stuffed with trowles, a small fold-out ladder strengthened by magic, bottles, jars, spray-bottles, and a jug of what appeared to be water.
The two made their way down the path through the mountain and to the covered ravine beyond. The water still trickled down the rock face, and the moss was growing more prolific than ever. The Aurora vines were gone, removed by a specialist team, examined, catalogued, and then destroyed during the Ponyville Organised Crime Inquest that Warden had been a witness in.
Unofficially, at least a dozen members of the courts knew that Kuno had committed murder in taking the life of Daggertail. Officially, Daggertail’s death was one of the most severe cases of suicide they’d ever come across.
Warden immediately removed a cementing trowel from his buckets, and then placed down the buckets themselves, moving towards the rock. “Just... wait there. I’ll get this done and then we can plant the seeds.”
Kuno sat down to watch, placing the box down gently while Warden began to literally carve a path up the length of the rocks with the trowel, scraping off the moss in a very specific pattern. He hummed as he worked, tenaciously climbing up the vines on the rocks, using his bad hoof to clear the path. He hissed faintly as he worked, in between the humming, looking strained, but he ignored the pain and continued. Once he had a branching path meticulously carved through the moss, he came back to the buckets. Carefully, he picked up the jar of clear liquid, and an dropper, inhaling deeply and holding his breath as he filled the dropper with the liquid.
“What’s that?” Kuno asked, as Warden screwed the lid back on tightly.
“Concentrated acid,” Warden said calmly, tilting the dropper to peer at the liquid within. Kuno stared. “Gotta scorch the rock or the moss will grow and stop the Aurora from taking the correct path.”
Kuno nodded, completely not understanding what he was saying. Warden just smiled. “You’ll see.”
Humming faintly, Warden pulled himself back up the rockface, and then began to drip the acid carefully across the trails he had made, burning the remaining moss entirely. A quick brush of his hoof over each acid-scorched area left it clean and bare. Warden was meticulous in his preparation, going over each area twice.
Once he had acid-treated the entire path, Warden emptied out the dropper and then cleaned it in the small stream of water in the centre of the ravine. He then picked up a jaw of purple liquid, and motioned for Kuno to bring over the seeds.
Kuno picked up the box, placing it down at the base of the clear trail that had been cut into the moss.
Warden flipped the box open, and then dug a trench carefully at the base of the path. He dug a little, stopped, dug some more, stopped, dug again, and then filled it in a little bit with a hoofful of dirt. With a hum, he dripped a few droplets of purple liquid into the hole, before gingerly placing the seedling in the hole he had made. He then dropped some of the purple liquid onto the seedling itself, and it immediately began to grow.
“Hold the stem gently against the rock. Don’t let it curl around your hoof,” Warden cautioned, as he clambered back up the rock.
Kuno gave a bewildered blink, pushing the stem gently against the rock. Warden began to carefully drop the purple liquid down the path of clear rock he had created.
“What’s that purple stuff?” Kuno asked, peering up at him.
Warden smiled, half-grimacing as he strained his hoof. “It’s a special extract that encourages growth in plants. A mix of hemlock, a special variety of chilli pepper, and an obnoxious weed.”
Kuno peered up at him for a moment, and then giggled. “You ground up a tax collector just for that stuff?”
Warden laughed, shaking his head. He pushed himself up the rock further, and then stumbled slightly, reaching with his bad hoof for a hoofhold. The obvious happened, and his hoof refused to take the weight, causing the pegasus to come tumbling off the rock with a loud thud!, landing in a splayed heap of wings and limbs.
Kuno frowned, releasing the plant and bounding over to him.
“Don’t leave the Aurora!” Warden hissed, his ears pinning back as he gingerly untangled himself.
Frowning deeply, Kuno meekly turned around and made her way back to the plant, carefully holding it against the rock. Warden limped over closer to her, and turned his head away to hide the faint shimmer of tears in his eyes as he grit his teeth and climbed the rock again.
“Are you okay?” Kuno asked, worried.
“‘m fine,” Warden murmured around his mouthful of dropper, returning to where he was before and beginning to drip the purple liquid across the path in the moss. After another ten minutes, the final droplet was placed.
“Do you want to do the honors?” Warden asked, holding out the dropper.
Kuno blinked once, ears pinning back. She gingerly took the dropper in one hoof. “What do I do?”
“The route is all prepped... just put a droplet on the top of the plant and hold it against the rock face,” Warden explained with a strained smile, sitting down heavily.
Kuno looked back and forth, biting her bottom lip. “You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Warden said breathlessly, settling himself down on his stomach, stretching out his wing slowly.
Giving one last, uncertain look at him, Kuno held the dropper over the plant, pushed it firmly up against the rock face, and then squeezed the end of the dropper, so a single droplet of purple liquid dropped down on top of the plant.
The Aurora plant immediately sprung to life. It grew almost an inch with that first droplet. Kuno gave a worried look, and held it firmly against the rock. The instant the plant found the purple trail, it began to suck the liquid into itself, the central vine immediately shooting up the rock face. Kuno watched with wide eyes as the plant grew and split into the channel that Warden had created and painted. In less than a minute, the plant was at full size, clinging to the rock face in the channel it had been presented with.
Warden gave a weary smile. “All done.”
Kuno blinked once, staring up at the plant. “It was so fast!”
Warden gave a proud smile. “Before I discovered how to ‘paint’ a path, Aurora had to be grown in the first stages with constant supervision. Somepony had to be there to hold it the entire time. Braces were too confining, and not intuitive enough.”
Kuno shook her head in amazement. “You really know your stuff.”
Warden motioned towards his cutie mark pointedly.
Rolling her eyes, Kuno moved to sit besides him, staring up at the vine. “So where are we planting the other seedling?”
“We’re not,” Warden stated.
Kuno blinked once, “Wha?”
“I don’t have anywhere else for the second seedling. And it’d be too much work. We only have three seeds in the first place in case the other two fail. Aurora fails a lot,” Warden pointed out with a weary smile. “The third seedling can be given to somepony else, I guess. Let them try to grow this stuff.”
Kuno nodded silently, and then leaned sideways, gently rubbing her hoof against his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Warden shook his head. “Not really.”
Pursing her lips, Kuno leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Want me to head back and get the Wonder Weed?”
Warden shook his head again. “I’ll be fine... just need a little while. You go on back, I’ll be back home before it gets dark.”
“And leave you alone out here?” Kuno asked, aghast.
Warden slowly raised a brow. “Yes, because the Aurora is going to eat me alive if you leave me alone.”
Kuno frowned deeply. “You know what I mean!”
“I’m a big pony now,” Warden said with a soft smile. “I just need to rest is all. Go home and bake a cake.”
“Cake?!” Kuno asked, bouncing in place, before she calmed and bit her bottom lip. “Stop distracting me!”
“Cake,” Warden repeated, pointing a hoof. “It’s at home.”
Kuno whined faintly, and then kissed him with a furious intent. “You are a mean pegasus and I will punish you.” She turned away from him, and then bounded away a few steps, spreading her wings and taking to the skies with eager beats. “After I bake cake!”